Jean Tinguely. Retrospective

We are pleased to be able to present another big exhibition of about 160 works of the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely (1925 – 1991) after 17 years. This time, the retrospective shows sculptures, models, drawings, drafts, sketches, posters and photos from the holdings of the Jean Tinguely Museum in Basle.

  With "JEAN TINGUELY – A Retrospective" the KunstHausWien honours one of the most important and popular representatives of the development of modern art, which aimed at extending the traditional concept of art: replacing the classical "static" forms of painting and sculpture by experiments with moveable objects and materials hitherto alien to art. "I am only a thief, a parasite of technology, a pincher,
a scrounger in this wonderful industrial world"
Jean Tinguely

"Beauty" evolves, with Tinguely, from a combination of the "ugly", as his works are not given high polish; they work despite their anachronistically un-functional appearance and the shabbiness of their components and thus become a double parody of a high-tech environment: They are not only "pure products of art" without a function, but at the same time caricature a traditional concept of beauty which indispensably demands a highly polished, smooth exterior.

In 1991, the year the KunstHausWien museum was opened, it was Hundertwasser's
desire to begin the series of international special exhibitions with a Jean Tinguely exhibition.
Jean Tinguely passed away in Berne on 30 August, 1991. "Nachtschattengewächse" (Solanaceae) in the KunstHausWien was his last exhibition in his lifetime.